I like to make all kinds of quilts, from postcard to king-size. I have a Gammill longarm quilting machine, several domestic sewing machines, and also work with a Babylock Embellishing machine. In the past few years, I have tried my hand at painting with watercolors and art journaling. I also throw in a little nature photography and the occasional travel or grandchild pictures. Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Wednesday WIP- Trash to Treasure?

Does anyone remember my "Creative Challenge" project that started with a black trash bag and torn strips of colored plastic bags? I had to put it aside for awhile, but have now finished all the steps detailed in the challenge instructions. I started with two large pieces, but have cut them into more manageable sizes. It is surprising to see how pretty they look. The last step was to fill in the holes with the gold wrappers from Ferrero-Rocher chocolates. Since I am thinking of making a purse for the North Carolina Quilt Symposium "Purse-on-ality"challenge with mine, I decided to use the quilters' gold lame for the centers. I fused it to a piece of cotton before sewing to keep it from fraying. On this piece, I stitched around the centers and made flower shapes from a thick black thread.

I started out trying some of the jewel-colored threads for the flowers, but they did not show up against the rainbow organza. I stayed with black after that.

You know me, I get tired of doing the same thing over and over. On this large piece which will probably become the purse, I added a layer of Angelina fibers over the gold lame. Except for one center which I made from a piece of some stretchy, shiny purple polyester that I have had for years.

And, this one is postcard-size and uses the actual Ferrero-Rocher wrappers that my friend Michelle Bonds sent to me for this project. I have added some Lumiere paint and additional stitching to this one.

I am probably going to quilt these on the long-arm to get them to lay down a little flatter. You can't exactly iron them flat! And something needs to be done to improve those thick fern fronds.

Okay, today you get two WIP's for the price of one. Here is the latest revision to the dreaded spider plant art quilt. I changed the window location and fabric so I can add something in the window with embellishment or quilting. There are a few more leaves sewn in.

Speaking of a Work-in-Progress...here is one of my favorites. My oldest grandchild, Charles Avery, is five years old today. On April 29, 2004, I made Charlie get up at 2:00 AM and drive to South Carolina when we found out that the baby had been born by emergency C-section. We will be spending the weekend with them to celebrate.

And if you follow NHL hockey at all, there is a lot of celebrating going on in Raleigh after the Carolina Hurricanes won the Eastern regional playoffs in a stunning come-from-behind win over the New Jersey Devils with two goals in the last minute-and-a-half of play in Game 7. Go Canes! (Hey, Dave, how about that...I wrote about hockey on my blog! And we did watch the end of that game after Dancing with the Stars!)